Piapro Studio/Studio One help?

[peaches2217]

I'm working on a cover in Piapro for the first time. I've more or less figured Piapro out, but how do I make the backing track match up? When I go to the main track, it doesn't show anything for Piapro, so it's all based on guesswork. The problem with that is that I got it set, then I went back to the beginning and played it through, and... suddenly it didn't match up anymore. It does this every time I try to fix it. Nothing matches up.

Please forgive me if this is simple and obvious and I'm only not getting it because I'm an idiot. I just have no idea what I'm doing. It's frustrating.

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

I use Piapro Studio a lot myself, so I might be able to help. Try making sure that the tempo/BPM in Studio One matches the BPM of the cover in Piapro.
It may be a Studio One issue, though; I find Studio One tends to be kinda buggy sometimes. If the problem persists, maybe try loading Piapro and the off vocal in a different DAW, like FL Studio. I hope this helps!

 

[peaches2217]

I... am an idiot. That was the problem. The song is 122 BPM. Piapro had the right BPM, but the backing track didn't. Thank you!!

I still wish you could see the vocals when moving the track around, though. It's still primarily guess work.

 

[mobius017]

I... am an idiot. That was the problem. The song is 122 BPM. Piapro had the right BPM, but the backing track didn't. Thank you!!

I still wish you could see the vocals when moving the track around, though. It's still primarily guess work.

Hm, that's interesting. My understanding was that Piapro should match up with the tempo set in your DAW. Though I'm not sure what happens if you change it inside Piapro and leave the DAW alone; it might be out of sync then.

I've often wished you could see the notes from Piapro in the DAW, too. Right now, you can get some guidance from the beat measurements at the top of Piapro/the DAW. In Piapro and Studio One (and I'm sure in any other DAW), there should be something along the top or bottom like the "ruler" you see in word processing programs--it will lay out a count of the measures and beats moving forward in time. I can see it in your screenshot--it's the 1 3 5 7 9 11 line just above your 1LDK track. As long as Piapro and your DAW are set to the same tempo, those rulers should correspond between the two programs--so when you're at measure 1, beat 1 in Piapro, you'll be at measure 1, beat 1 in your DAW. Your view is zoomed out pretty far in your screenshot and looks like it shows a number corresponding to every other measure; if you zoom in, it will show the beats within the measures, too. It's not an ideal way to line things up, but it kind of works.

 

[Kona]

Hm, that's interesting. My understanding was that Piapro should match up with the tempo set in your DAW. Though I'm not sure what happens if you change it inside Piapro and leave the DAW alone; it might be out of sync then.

I've often wished you could see the notes from Piapro in the DAW, too. Right now, you can get some guidance from the beat measurements at the top of Piapro/the DAW. In Piapro and Studio One (and I'm sure in any other DAW), there should be something along the top or bottom like the "ruler" you see in word processing programs--it will lay out a count of the measures and beats moving forward in time. I can see it in your screenshot--it's the 1 3 5 7 9 11 line just above your 1LDK track. As long as Piapro and your DAW are set to the same tempo, those rulers should correspond between the two programs--so when you're at measure 1, beat 1 in Piapro, you'll be at measure 1, beat 1 in your DAW. Your view is zoomed out pretty far in your screenshot and looks like it shows a number corresponding to every other measure; if you zoom in, it will show the beats within the measures, too. It's not an ideal way to line things up, but it kind of works.

that change happens when you load a VSQX or MIDI into Piapro. The tempo in Piapro will change, but Studio One will not.
In normal circumstances though, the two change together

As for matching things up, this suggestion is the best. My recommendation for how to do it though, when your Studio One and Piapro are at the same tempo, you can use the bars to estimate. I recommend playing the instrumental until the song should start, then pausing it, next to your play/stop/skip back/skip forward contrals on the left should be a time with the word bars under it (can also say seconds, frames, etc depending what you have it set to but it’s a simple click and change. )
Get that number and go to Piapro, where the numbers are along the top in a number line or ruler, as mobius compared it to. Though not as detailed as Studio One’s measure lines, you can pretty easily find where the start needs to go and just fine tune the placement with guesswork

The reason why Piapro Studio gets no track in Studio One is because the “track” is actually a part, just like in Vocaloid, a track is empty until you place a part there, but Piapro is a completely external VSTi so drawing a part does nothing for you. All external VSTis I have used, included V5, act this way.

Another thing you can do, if you are completely done with your tuning is go to Song > Export Stems which will creatr a wav of each instrument track in Studio One and you can place is in there instead of having Piapro Studio open. Keep in mind if you want harmonies in a seperate wav, you have to go to Piapro abd mute what you don’t want rendered because all of Piapro is one instrument track

 

[peaches2217]

Thank y'all so much! The problem is that, for this particular cover, it starts with a brief conversation before the instrumental kicks in, and the timing doesn't match up 100% to the rest of the song. I tried making it to where the spoken parts were in time with the tempo, and that made it to where there's a long, awkward pause between the end of the spoken part and the beginning of the track (but not long enough to cut any of the blank space out and still keep everything on-tempo) or the track comes in before the spoken part is done (which I tried to rectify by making them speak faster, but that took it from "pretty average-sounding" to "these two only have five seconds to live and they HAVE to know how each others' day was before they die").

That said, I've got an excellent ear, so I was able to match it up. I think when I'm finished with this, I'll export the track and the WAV for the vocals over into FL Studio, and there I can make it better.

 

[mobius017]

Thank y'all so much! The problem is that, for this particular cover, it starts with a brief conversation before the instrumental kicks in, and the timing doesn't match up 100% to the rest of the song. I tried making it to where the spoken parts were in time with the tempo, and that made it to where there's a long, awkward pause between the end of the spoken part and the beginning of the track (but not long enough to cut any of the blank space out and still keep everything on-tempo) or the track comes in before the spoken part is done (which I tried to rectify by making them speak faster, but that took it from "pretty average-sounding" to "these two only have five seconds to live and they HAVE to know how each others' day was before they die").

That said, I've got an excellent ear, so I was able to match it up. I think when I'm finished with this, I'll export the track and the WAV for the vocals over into FL Studio, and there I can make it better.

I think I have a better way to handle the spoken part: make the spoken part its own separate song, export it to .wav, and put it into the main song before the instrumental/vocals start up. That way, the tempo settings for the conversation/song will be separate.

It might also be possible to have a tempo change between the conversation and the actual song, but I'm not sure exactly how you do that; I've just seen people ask about it. To my mind, separating the two pieces is possibly simpler/easier to make work.

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

I... am an idiot. That was the problem. The song is 122 BPM. Piapro had the right BPM, but the backing track didn't. Thank you!!

I still wish you could see the vocals when moving the track around, though. It's still primarily guess work.

Don't I know it? Haha. That's the only thing I don't like about Piapro!
Also, you're not an idiot; it's one of those things that's super easy to look over it. Glad I was able to help!

 

[mobius017]

Here's probably a dumb question: if you move a region in Piapro forward/backward in the timeline, is there any way to move all the parameter automations along with it?

 

[uncreepy]

Here's probably a dumb question: if you move a region in Piapro forward/backward in the timeline, is there any way to move all the parameter automations along with it?

No that I know of, unfortunately. Isn't it like that in every vocal synth software, though? (Like CeVIO and Synth V, for example.) That's why I make sure to tune last in case something has to get rearranged (for original songs). (I would love to be proved wrong on this one, though.)

 

[mobius017]

Mm, I vaguely think I remember hearing that maybe Utau bundled at least some automations with the notes...but I think Piapro does that, too, for some things.

The Range tool looks promising ("Every Region, Notes or Automation can be selected by dragging this tool. Also, you can set the loop area by dragging in Bar line (to be described). The Loop area will be highlighted in yellow."), if I can just figure out how to get it to do more than draw a yellow box that I can resize but can't move, ha ha.

(That thing about setting the loop area is useful in and of itself, but sadly isn't the problem I'm looking to solve ATM :) .)

 

[mobius017]

I think I've got it more or less sorted. It seems like you can't move a region/its automation in one move (or at least I've not figured out how to), but the regular selection tool can move the automations in one move and then the region in one move. (Moving the region, in my case at least, also seemed to want to move the automations as well, but it didn't do it right and wound up kind of stretching them out. So I moved the automations first, and then moved the region, then corrected for how moving the region moved the automations, which seemed to work ok, at least for me in this case. )

Still not positive what the Range tool is supposed to do; I think it might be more useful if I had multiple tracks or something.

(To @uncreepy's point, it probably IS best to tune as a last step. I just couldn't resist doing a little playing with a minor part of Miku's bit just to see what happened; plus, I'm one of those who likes to optimize as I go along to some extent, so that that sound might inspire later decisions....)

Thanks @uncreepy!

 

[Cyana]

It might also be possible to have a tempo change between the conversation and the actual song, but I'm not sure exactly how you do that; I've just seen people ask about it. To my mind, separating the two pieces is possibly simpler/easier to make work.

To change tempo in studio one, click the little clock in the top left (near where the automation/marker buttons are), and it will bring up an automation track for tempo/bpm. Depending on how much you want to change it you may need to adjust the min/max settings, but other than that you just draw it like any other automation. If you want to change the time signature (eg from 4/4 to 3/4), move the playback line to where you want the change, then right click the grid/ruler along the top and click "insert time signature". Then choose the desired time signature. Piapro will mirror the changes made in S1

That said, for instances like this it's probably better to export the conversation separately still. I've never had an issue with piapro changing bpm/time signature, but when I tried it with V5 it did not like it at all and crashed. Better safe than sorry